I Love

Don't ask me why, but this morning when I woke up, I had Tom T. Hall's song..."I love" stuck in my head. It's more than stuck in my brain, I think it paid a month's rent and has taken up residence. If you're not familiar with Mr. Hall's song, it is a simple one. He goes down a list of things that he loves. Baby ducks, old pick up trucks....onions....etc.etc.

I think maybe we let life drive us, to the point that we miss the small blessing and gifts the Father gives us each day. So I thought I'd do my own list of "I love" things. Here goes.

I love the way the Holy Spirit can make a Scripture jump off the page at you. You may have read it a million times, but on this particular day, you see something that you've never seen before.

I love a good Southern vegetable supper. Peas, Cream corn, Cole slaw, A slice of onion and some corn bread. Maybe a slice of tomato to balance it all out. Wash it down with a glass of iced tea. If that don't crank your tractor, then your battery's dead.

I love to play board games with my family. It's not so much the game or the competition as it is what is said during the time we are playing. I watched my two sons (ages 42 and 39) turn into two little boy's squabbling over whether they rolled a 7 or was it a 5.  The squabbling was really more comic relief than anything.  

I love the sound an "E" chord makes when it is played on a really good guitar. Don't know why, but "E" has always been my chord of choice. Of course I could spiritualize it and say that since "E" is the 5th chord in the majors, it is the GRACE chord (5 being the number for grace). But I won't go there. I just like the sound of it.

I love coffee from my percolator. We don't have a Keurig, or a Mr. Coffee (do they even make those any more? And why isn't there a Mrs. Coffee?) Old school coffee, or as Todd Bagley and Wayne Wimppee so aptly put it...."Cowboy Coffeee". 

I love it when I am aware of the presence of God during a worship set on Saturday night.
That moment when all your problems seem to fade in a haze and you are suddenly free of all the junk that fills your mind. That moment when the words the song you are singing become life and truth to you. When nothing else matters and it is just you and God. I wish I could live in that place.

I love Christmas eve. To me the 24th of December is the quietest night of the year. You can go outside shortly before midnight and it's like the world has stopped. Almost as if God Himself has stood up and commanded silence in honor of the birth of His Son, Jesus.

I love to meet with those who have overcome their addiction. Who have given themselves to God and a program of recovery. To see the joy and happiness on their face as they share with you the victory that has become a part of their life. That is payday to me.

I love a good western. Not one that is in color but the old black and white kind. The kind where good wins every time. When you could tell the bad guys by the "Boston Blackie" mustache they wore. I feel for you if you don't know who Boston Blackie was. That means you can't join the Old Codger Club. 

I love to see someone have the light bulb come on, and realize that Jesus is their only hope in this life. To see conviction come upon a heart that has been locked in darkness, and be freed from that prison to be transferred into the marvelous light of God's Kingdom. Now that's some good stuff right there.

I love a good Southern accent. I mean the kind you find in South Alabama, below Montgomery. When the word "gorgeous" is stretched out to a million syllables, and it sounds something like this...."Why that is simply Go-a-juss". Nothing sweeter than the sound of speech that has been born and cultured here in the South. So what is it that drives me crazy? A movie where you have someone trying to imitate the Southern Accent.

Lastly in my "I love" list....
Is the love I have for John 3:16

(Amplified Bible)
For God so greatly love and dearly prized the world that He (even) gave up His only begotten (Unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

I guess you could say that I truly want to love the things that God loves.
I want to learn how to love like God loves.
God on you...
mbb